Our campsite. Okay, not really...

Days that start off with an e-mail saying you may lose a friend are never good… The friend is a four legged one but has never the less been (in a very short time) “a favored companion”… I’m not sure what is going to happen to B.’s dog today, but he isn’t well… isn’t responding to medication and I’ve begun to assume the worst… I’m surprised by how much I’m moved by this… considering I don’t really like dogs and have known him only a short while. It may truly be a sad day.

Silent Lake Weekend

Silent Lake Day 1 – Friday July 26
I picked Pat up and loaded the car. While at Pat’s I came across an old Soviet Union flag he had… for Shits & Giggles we brought it along. (It became the weekend joke that we were comrades and such and created many great photo ops for us patriotic Russians! Heh… and the priceless looks on people as they walked by. Hehe…) Off we go Silent Lake… right into a traffic jam on the 401. D’OH! We crawled along for at least 30 minutes. We never did figure out why… bah. Anyways…We were trying to get to highway 28. At some point along the 115 it *said* we were on the 115/28 then suddenly we weren’t… Shrug. Eventually the 115 ended and forced you to turn left or right. I figured right… and bingo… came across the 28 in about 10 minutes. Odd. Once onto the 28, the rest of the way was easy.

The walk in sites at Silent Lake are very nice indeed. It was a major hike bringing in the gear to the site. Phew… ack. (Heh, later that night we found that the trail looped to the parking lot and was substantially closer up a little hill to the site… Sigh. It looked like a path to one particular site not to *all* of them. Oh well. No signage.)

Anyways… camping. Wow… I don’t recall such an amazing overall day at a Provincial Park. The temperature, lack of bugs, setting and company made for a wicked day.

Joe. Well to say I am disappointed in, who should have been, the fourth member of the camp would be an understatement. What Joe says and what Joe does is sadly often quite different. This has been the case for years. He claimed to have been ‘packed and ready to go’ and ‘leaving around 8 to avoid traffic’. His call fine. With the walk in we figured it would be impossible to find the site without a flashlight. So… Pat and I walked to the gate house (nearly 4km) and waited for him. And waited, and waited. No Joe. Sigh. So we walked back, had a beer then returned to the parking lot about 30 minutes later, still no Joe. I don’t know why I’m surprised. He has a long history of not showing and ditching us in spite of plans. Does he think we don’t worry or wonder what has happened to him? We got such a negative vibe about being screwed by him yet again. (He never did show, and sent no e-mail to explain why either. Nice. Thanks guy.)

The walk was enjoyable however. The sky was so clear. So many stars, really mind blowing… we witnessed a massive shooting star as well… Usually they are tiny white streaks, this one was large and orange. Very cool. We wandered down to the canoe launch and laid on the deck and looked at the stars for a while. Ahh… relaxing. Even at night, it was still quite warm…off to bed… I hope tomorrow promises more of the same.

Silent Lake Day 2 – Saturday July 26
Still no Joe, we decided to call him. No answer. We abandoned hope of seeing him. It started as an overcast day, regardless of impending rain we wanted to rent some water craft and buzz about the lake. We rented a canoe and a kayak. The Paluski kayak was rather disappointing, it had a rudder but still tracked very poorly often veering off to one side or the other. Hmmpt. The lake is very big… I think we only explored a very small part of it before the rains came and we returned to the docks. There were little islands to visit and small harbours and scenery galore…

The rain gave us a chance to go into Bancroft and pick up a few groceries. While there we decided to walk around a bit. We stopped in front of a Real Estate office that had properties for sale in the window. A couple approached the window while we were looking at the pics. Then, the guy (from couple) (in spite of standing directly in front of them) pointed to a property grazing my hat. Yes I have space issues. Stay the f**k out of my space unless you are invited thank you. Once is fine, I ignored him, but when he did it again! I blurted a nasty “Excuse Me!” No reply. What is wrong with people? This guy must have been about 24 or so… Darwin please take him away. Gah! Some people’s kids.

After we returned to the camp… making dinner was interrupted by rain, rain and more rain. Sigh. After the fire failed we gave up, and fell asleep. Anti-climatic indeed.

Silent Lake Day 3 – Sunday July 27
We were awoken to the sounds of Gollum (another site had a young child who loved to scream and who’s parents sat idly by and did nothing when she did… we named her Gollum) It was pretty overcast again. After breakfast it began to rain. SIGH! We decided to drive into Peterborough. Amazingly Peterborough was sunny and warm when we arrived, but nearly everything was CLOSED! SIGH! We were simply looking for a pool hall… up and down streets we ventured – nothing… We gave up after 30 minutes and got some drinks and lunch at a pub on the main street… Pretty much the only business that was open. To toast the day we enjoyed a nice shot of Oban Scotch… I didn’t know I liked Scotch. It was yum! The waiter told us of a Pool Hall at the far end of the main street. We played a few games and returned to the site. Pat and I decided to do one of the shorter hikes at Silent Lake. ‘Bonnie’s Pond Trail’. It was pretty cool.. I took a fair number of pictures. It was mostly swamps and one nice lookout area. The trail was well marked and well maintained.

It was a good final night… we ate, drank and were merry… especially after we looted some neighbouring vacant sites of wood. Mmm fire good!

Silent Lake Day 4 – Monday July 28
Homeward bound today. A lot of packing indeed. People were already ushering us off the site before we were even finished packing! Argh, no matter I was eager to get going anyways. It proved to be a long drive home, traffic was awful. I don’t enjoy driving with Pat either, he is very intense to drive with – chill bro! Anyway. It was a great weekend, I wish the weather was better but, oh well. We had a good time regardless and Silent Lake is a very well maintained park. I will return for sure, hopefully with b.!